So, I haven’t published here but twice this year, both in April and both essentially re-postings of previous material, but let’s just say I have been a disappointment to the few who care and get on with it. I do not approve of beating a dead horse, especially when I am said horse.

I hope to get Mermaids back on track as of this month. I have been, as so many bloggers and website folks also have, mesmerized by the ease with which one can share options and viewpoints and just about anything on Facebook and, to a lesser degree in my case, Twitter (because I find Twitter annoying, albeit useful).

However, it now appears that things have progressed to the point where I can select as much of my Facebook presence as I might desire and post it here as well.

After the world had ended, after the angels with their swords of fire had wreaked the Final Judgement, God–who looked surprisingly like Fred Astaire–came down to the smoldering planet and searched the rubble until he found the Last Man.

He pulled the wretched creature to his feet and shook him fiercely. “What did you people think you were doing?”

The Last Man licked his dry lips, blinked once or twice and finally sputtered out his rely, the epitaph of the failed human race. “B..B..Bernie can still win…”

…received immediate responses, positive and negative, and engender a conversation of sorts. Other pots

There is nothing possible to say about this other than “what did you expect?” However, this comment at Huffington Post comes pretty close to hitting that mark:

> Tom Bishop · Marion Harding High SchoolI just watched John McCain on CNN and he stated that his only regret regarding his pick of Sarah Palin as his Vice Presidential running mate, was: “her treatment by the main stream media, it was disgraceful “. He conveniently leaves out the part that she was totally incompetent, ignorant, devoid of the basic knowledge required for life much less being next in line for the highest office in the land. His selection of this dolt will go down as one of the most frighteningly asinine moves ever made by a Presidential candidate and yet he has the testicles to point a finger at the media for calling out what a disaster she was….Good work John and now you’re smooching up to Trump’s posterior, you’re displaying all of the attributes of a great leader…..laughable. <

If Donald Trump will be the most embarrassing candidate the GOP has ever offered this side of Dubya, McCain can give both a run for that distinction.

The links within posts are still active (click on the one under McCain’s photo and readers here can, should they chose, use the links in red to visit the original post to read and/or get involved in the comments which were engendered.

I don’t know if this is a good idea or not, whether it has any appeal or whether there is anyone left out there who cares.

But, what the hell, I’ll give it a try.

(NOTE: All posts here also go to Facebook and Twitter so this could be a mess that curls back into itself and disappears into the ether. That could be fun too.)

The entire power of the presidency comes down now to the president’s ability to “demonstrate his willingness to compromise” with a bunch of vandals and yahoos, many of whom think Jim DeMint is too soft on the moochers. Exactly what is this supposed to accomplish? What is the purpose of the demonstration? The Democrats are going to go up the wall, and the Republicans are going to ask for more and more “demonstrations” of the president’s willingness to compromise until he has shown himself willing to compromise us back to 1922. Who is the demonstration supposed to convince? David Brooks? This is crazy. This is wrong. It is government by Beltway dumbshow. It is awful politics and worse policy.

Tacitly accept the silly arguments that Social Security is not a earned benefit but rather an “entitlement.”

Open the door for future cuts because of the precedent it sets.

Make “Obama cut your Social Security!” a GOP rallying call in 2014 and 2016.

Be the guy who goes down in history as the president who laid the groundwork for dismantling the New Deal and the Great Society.

A man advocating executing journalists for treason in honor of Free Speech Week for being too supportive of the American president just described other people as “Orwellian.” Good job, Rush. Super totes double-plus-good.

First a some of Twitter-y-tweets/Facebook-y posts that I put up today [Note:I keep adding to and updating these]…

I presume someone will be pointing out any minute now that Paul Ryan has even less experience than Sarah Palin at running anything…including a business.

Interesting they made the announcement on a battleship, innit? Whatever message might they be trying to communicate?

The CEO chose a guy who has none of the business experience that the CEO cites as his own best qualification to be president to be his running mate, a guy who is–wait for it now–pretty much a Washington insider and life-long politician. Can you say “desperation,” boys and girls?

As somebody noted, Romney/Ryan will be a campaign where the putative president is running on his vice-president’s record. And if, God help us, they win, we would likely have a repeat of Cheney/Bush (i.e., bumbling jackass out front to amuse the country while the evil veep and his neocon buddies run the show from the shadows).

But the big thing nobody’s yet mention that I’ve seen is this:

By choosing Ryan and his budget to be the face of the campaign, the Mittster has made it impossible for the wingnuts to scream “He’s not a Real Conservative!” now and, after Romney/Ryan loses, to say that the reason was “They were Conservative enough!”

A GOP loss in November could actually finally save the nation from the right wing madness that has captured our discourse. A GOP win, of course, could shortly leave us with a nation beyond saving.

Seriously, once civilization collapses, which could be almost any day now if you’re paying atttention, you will need something to discuss around the campfires with the Nerds, who will be, according to all predictions, the species which best can survive without the amenities of civilized life.

Like this:

Conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh on Tuesday suggested that Hollywood liberals have been plotting for years to release the third and final Batman movie before the election in 2012 with a villain who’s name sounds like GOP hopeful Mitt Romney’s former company, Bain Capital.

“Do you know the name of the villain in this movie?” Limbaugh asked his listeners. “Bane. The villain in ‘The Dark Knight Rises’ is named Bane. B-A-N-E. What is the name of the venture capital firm that Romney ran and around which there is now this make-believe controversy? Bain.”

“The movie has been in the works for a long time, the release date has been known — summer 2012 — for a long time,” he added. “Do you think that it is accidental that the name of the really vicious, fire-breathing, four-eyed, what-ever-it-is villain in this movie is named Bane?”

“And now there’s discussion out there as to whether or not this was purposeful and whether or not it will influence voters. It’s going to have a lot of people. This movie, the audience is going to be huge. A lot of people are going to see the movie, and it’s a lot of brain-dead people, entertaining the pop-culture crowd. And they’re going to hear ‘Bane’ in the movie and they’re going to associate ‘Bain’ and the thought is that when they start paying attention to the campaign later in the year and Obama and the Democrats keep talking about Bain — not Bain Capital — Romney and Bain that these people will think back to the bad man.”

Pierce on the US Postal Service and it’s importance in our national psyche and how it was screwed royally by right wing fanatics. As is always the case, his writing alone makes it worth reading, in only for this admirable summation of the attitudes and methods of the growing movement in this country to destroy this country from within…

The entire modern conservative movement consists of an ongoing attempt to sever the relationship of a self-governing people to their government, to break down the concept of a political commonwealth. Many of the conservative attempts to wedge people apart through the use of an Other to be feared and despised — whether that was black people, or empowered women, or immigrants, or gay people — have been framed to attack the government’s attempts to ameliorate discrimination against the groups in question. In modern conservative thought, then, and in the mindset it seeks to ingrain on the people of the country, the government is the ultimate Other.

Prowling through the archives just now looking for a post I vaguely remember which, if it exists, has some information that would brighten up a column I am trying to write, I ran across this instead. Enjoy. Or ignore. Whatever … Continue reading →

So this is something I did today because I felt like doing something today in lieu of straightening up the mess that is my desk. I mean, who knows what horrors might lie at the bottom of pile #2? This … Continue reading →